Over the past six years, President Bollinger and the University Trustees, with the support of a special President's Task Force on Athletics, have invested time, thought, and financial resources in formulating a strategy for transforming athletics at Columbia. Their commitment underlies our efforts to bring athletics in line with Columbia's hallmark standards of excellence.

To pursue this strategy, we have launched The Columbia Campaign for Athletics: Achieving Excellence. An unprecedented $100 million initiative, it reflects a deep and shared commitment among the University community. We are committed to building world-class facilities that foster championship performances. We are committed to attracting and retaining outstanding coaches and providing them with the resources they need to be successful. And we are committed to providing an environment that will make Columbia the first choice for the best student-athletes.

Our vision of excellence in Athletics has been widely embraced at the University. There is a palpable sense of excitement surrounding Columbia's renewed commitment to Athletics.

We hope that you will lend your support to help us build on our momentum. Every gift from alumni, parents, friends, and fans makes a difference to achieving our standards of quality and excellence with our top priorities: People, Places, and Programs.

People
Our people are key to our success. Your support enables us to invest in recruiting great coaches to Columbia, who in turn recruit, train, and lead the next generation of Columbia student-athletes to athletics success. Over the course of the Campaign, we have successfully recruited several top coaches to Columbia, and we have established four new endowed coaching positions.

Places
We are pursuing capital initiatives to bring Columbia up to the standards of our peer institutions. The Campaign has already brought about transformational changes to Columbia Athletics' practice and training facilities, including: the installation of a new playing surface for football and lacrosse at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium, the renovation of the Chrystie Field House, including a renovation of the Football locker room and the creation of a sports medicine suite triple the size of the previous facility, the separation of the field hockey and softball venues at the Baker Athletics Complex and the installation of proper playing surfaces for both, and completion and dedication of baseball's Robertson Field at Satow Stadium. Gifts from alumni, friends, and fans will be pivotal to further capital initiatives, including the construction of the flagship Campaign initiative, The Campbell Sports Center.

Programs
Annual gifts are a vital source of current-use support for Columbia Athletics. Your generosity to our varsity sports programs and The Fund for Excellence have a direct impact on our continued success. Your participation helps us enhance the student-athlete experience by increasing sports program operating budgets, funding new training gear and equipment, making key renovations to facilities, enhancing the programs' recruiting budgets, and launching other initiatives that promote student-athlete well-being, including career development efforts.

Giving Resources:

Planned Gifts

For some donors, an outright gift is not the best means of achieving their philanthropic or estate-planning goals. Carefully planned gifts can offer significant estate-tax and income benefits, while at the same time allowing donors to make larger gifts to the University than would otherwise be possible.

The Office of Planned Giving can also assist you with gifts of securities, gifts of real estate, or gifts of other personal property.

For more information about making gifts of stock or other kinds of securities, please visit the Office of the Treasurer website.

Matching Gifts

Many companies will make a matching gift to Columbia when one of their employees makes a donation. Find out if your employer will make a matching gift to Columbia Athletics! Use the search engine here.

On behalf of the more than 700 student-athletes who compete for Columbia, our head and assistant coaches, and our athletics administrators, we thank you for your continued support of Columbia Athletics!